Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll
by brihana25
Summary: An ancient evil takes Dean as its next victim, and Sam will need to take on the gods themselves to save his brother. Complete summary and warnings inside. Gen. COMPLETE
1. Prologue

**FANDOM: **Supernatural

**TITLE:** Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll

**GENRE:** Gen

**CATEGORY:** Drama, H/C

**RATING:** R

**SEASON: **One (between Hell House and Something Wicked)

**PAIRING: **none

**WORD COUNT:** ~16,000

**SUMMARY:** Sam and Dean are in Memphis, Illinois, on the hunt for something that's tearing the town's young men apart and leaving their mangled bodies in the woods. What they find is a creature unlike anything they've ever faced, and to make matters worse, they have no idea how to kill it. When it takes one of the Winchesters as its next victim, the other is caught in a battle against both time and ancient forces beyond his control. Sam Winchester will take on the gods themselves, if that's what it takes to save his brother.

**DISCLAIMER:** Supernatural, its characters and situations, are copyright Eric Kripke and Warner Bros. Entertainment (The CW). No infringement on, or challenge to, their status is intended. This piece of fiction was written strictly for the entertainment of other fans, and I am gaining no form of compensation for it.

**MORE DISCLAIMERS:** This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual places and locations, is purely coincidental.

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **

This was written for the spn_reversebang challenge, and I have to say this has been one of the hardest stories that I've ever written. But it's also been one of the most rewarding.

I have to thank the incomparable, unbelievable switch842 for the fastest beta turnaround time in human history. And she still caught a hell of a lot of mistakes that I'd made and then missed. Thanks, as always, to **whisper99**, who was there for me during the planning stages and early on in the writing, helping me smooth over plotholes that I didn't even realize I was falling into.

I was lucky enough - and believe me when I say that lucky isn't even close to a strong enough word - to choose a prompt by the amazingly talented, awesome and incredible **becc_j**, whose art has always been some of my favorite in this fandom. The character that she created in her original sketch, and that she developed over the course of the next few months, is so incredibly beautiful and real that she jumped right off my screen and into my head.

Originally, this fic was intended to be around 9000 words, but becc_j's art was so inspiring that it ended up almost double that amount. The last three days have been a flurry of writing for me, because the story that I thought I was telling and the story that the art wanted me to tell were so completely different that I couldn't fit them together. In the end, it was becc_j herself who suggested the right ending to me, and I can honestly say that without her input, this wouldn't be half the story it is.

It's meant to compliment the art, to be one possible interpretation of what's happening in becc_j's jaw-droppingly gorgeous painting, and I sincerely hope it does. In the beginning, and in the end, the spn_reversebang is about the art, not the story that was written to accompany it. This story isn't mine, it's hers. And I can only hope that she thinks the end result is worth all the trouble I've caused her.

becc_j: I cannot thank you enough for your talent, your understanding, your patience, and your vision. But I'll try it anyway. Thank you.

**WARNINGS**: violence, torture, implied dub-con (offscreen), and threats of non-consensual sex

* * *

**Prologue**

Charlie Archer was not a man who was easy to shock.

Waking up somewhere he didn't remember falling asleep wasn't really anything new. Waking up knowing that he'd had sex that he didn't remember was more common than it should be. Waking up with a hangover that he didn't remember earning was pretty normal.

But waking up with his hands tied above his head – hanging from the ceiling with his toes barely brushing the floor – was completely new.

He lifted his head slowly, unsurprised that it felt so much heavier than it usually did but still wincing at the stabbing pain that flared to life behind his eyes. He blinked a few times, hoping to clear the fuzzy edges from his vision, but it did no good. He still saw only vague and blurry shapes and colors that he'd associate with a basement, a shaft of light coming in through a narrow window high in the wall behind him, and nothing else.

He had no idea where he was, how he'd gotten there, or who he'd gone with, which bothered him a little. His shirt and shoes were missing, and his jeans were low on his hips, like they were unbuttoned, which bothered him more. His head was cold, and when he rubbed it against his arm it felt like his hair wasn't there anymore, which bothered him quite a bit. Then there was the whole tied up and hanging from the ceiling thing, which bothered him a whole hell of a lot.

But he had to have been willing to do this at some point, right? He'd thought about it before, the whole bondage thing, but he'd never actually done it. He just had to have gotten it into his drunken head that this was a good idea. This was just an adventure game that had gone on a bit too long, and any minute someone, hopefully someone he recognized, would come let him down. And if he was lucky, they'd do it soon, because the more awake and alert his mind became, the more he realized just how much pain he was in.

The only parts of his arms that didn't hurt were his hands, and that was only because they were so numb he couldn't feel them at all. When he tipped his head back a bit further, he could see that they were a rather gross shade of purple and were horribly swollen, and he found himself grateful that he didn't feel it. His wrists, though... they hurt like hell. He could see them, too, see how the thick rope coiled tightly around and between them had cut into his skin as he'd hung there, for who knew how long, with all of his weight pulling down on them. He could see the streaks of blood that had run down his arms and dried there. The muscles in his arms were stretched so tight that they felt like they were about to snap, and his shoulders felt like they already might have.

He lowered his head again, careful not to jar it, and looked down. The blood on front of his unbuttoned jeans was another surprise, until he saw the strange scratches that covered his chest and stomach.

Were those... were those claw marks?

He could feel more blood dripping from the side of his head and running down his face, and the sting of what felt like cat scratches on his back. His mouth was so dry that there was almost no spit for him to swallow, and when he licked his lips, he found them cracked and bleeding. He coughed to clear his throat, flinched from the headache that reared back up, and looked toward what he hoped was the outline of a door.

"Hello?"

The sound of his own voice surprised him, not because he'd spoken but because of how wrong it sounded. Slurred, broken, cracked and weak, and there was no way anyone could hear him. He drew as deep a breath as his tortured shoulders and constricted chest would allow and tried again.

"Hello? Is someone here? Can someone... anyone hear me?"

He thought he saw the door opening, but it wasn't much more than a shifting shadow that might or might not have been real. It didn't make any noise that he could hear, but he figured that with everything else going on and the hangover raging behind his eyes, it was pretty likely that his ears weren't working right, either.

"Hello?" he said uncertainly.

"Hello, Charlie."

He recognized the voice as one he'd heard before, which would make sense if he'd actually had sex with this person the night before, but he couldn't immediately place it. With his eyes still not cooperating, the only visual assessment he could manage was that the person standing in front of him was shorter than he was and had long black hair. The voice told him it was probably a woman, but knowing himself the way he did, he had to admit that he couldn't really take that for granted.

He had no idea who this person was.

He forced himself to smile in the person's general direction. "Hey there... you." Well, that didn't come out half as sexy or smooth as he'd wanted it to. "How are you this morning?"

"Better than you are." Now, that was a sexy voice. Smooth but rough, soft but strong, it made him think, of all things, of the purr of a lion. Fingertips pressed against his chest just hard enough for him to realize they were there, then started running up and down his ribs.

"Yeah, we really... we really got up to something last night, did we?" And damn it, why couldn't he remember exactly what that was? Sure, he was used to waking up with a few blank spots, but he'd almost always remembered within a few minutes.

"Yes, we did," the voice answered. "Or, rather, I did."

The fingers were rougher now, pressing harder into his skin, and he squirmed a bit in discomfort.

"So, did we have..." He paused long enough for his mind to catch up with the rest of him. Sure, he'd thought about it, but he'd never really learned the terminology. "We have one of those safe word things?"

The person in front of him made a sound from deep in their throat, one that Charlie couldn't identify as either a yes or no. It actually sounded kind of like a growl.

"Because, ya know, I'm still kinda... kinda mixed up here, baby. And if we had one, I don't remember it."

"Aw." The disappointed reaction was coupled with a hard tug on the waistband of his jeans that pulled them down just a little lower on his hips. He had this feeling that he was about to find out exactly what they'd done the night before. "Are you done playing, baby?"

Was he imagining things, or was that sarcasm?

"You want to get down?"

"Yes, please," he answered with another smile.

"But, Charlie," the voice said. It hadn't lost any of the sexiness it had before, but it seemed to be gaining a harder edge, as if the person speaking was getting angry. "You've been such a bad, bad boy. Don't you think you deserve to be punished for that?"

The words were accompanied by the sharp jab of fingernails under his ribcage, and he couldn't stop himself from jerking away. It was a movement he regretted immediately when all of his other pains slammed right back into the center of his brain.

"Um... I'd say yes, but I think... this is really starting to hurt, baby. But if you cut me down, I promise I'll stick around and show you a real good time."

"It's starting to hurt, is it?" the voice asked, and he knew he wasn't imagining the anger in it that time.

"Y... yeah."

"Poor Charlie. I guess it's time to end our little game then, isn't it?"

He sighed deeply in relief and closed his eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

Even if he'd opened his eyes again, they'd still have been too blurry for him to see the way the person in front of him changed. And with them closed, he definitely didn't see the person's eyes change color, turning from bright green to deep yellow. He didn't see the pupils in those eyes changing shape, elongating and thinning to a point on each end. He didn't see the person hunch over onto all fours, or the way the back lengthened and the legs shortened. He didn't see the thick black fur that rapidly grew into place, the razor-sharp teeth that filled the mouth behind the parted lips, or the claws that extended from the ends of the paws that had been, only seconds before, the fingertips pressed against his chest.

But when the change was complete and the lioness pounced on him, the extra weight on the rope around his wrists making him cry out in pain, he realized just how badly he'd misjudged his situation. And when the teeth sank into his throat, cutting off his scream at the same time the claws shredded the skin above his ribcage, he sure as hell felt it.

No, Charlie Archer wasn't an easy man to shock. But he was just as easy to kill as any other.


	2. Part One

**Part One**

**Memphis, Illinois**

"Charles Archer, age twenty-seven. Last seen leaving the diner on Saturday night."

"And they found him yesterday morning?"

"Yeah. What was left of him."

Sam sighed and pushed the autopsy photos across the table to his brother. Dean looked down at the pictures, but shoved them back and turned away almost immediately.

"Dude, that's gross."

Sam nodded and continued digging through the stack of papers on the table in front of him. "They know he died the same way as the others they've found, in some kind of animal attack. But they still don't know what it was that killed them. The best they can come up with is that they were mauled to death by some kind of big cat, maybe a bobcat."

"What gave it away? The giant bloody paw prints or the claw marks all over them?"

Sam tilted his head in irritation.

Dean shrugged, reached over, and picked up the news clipping that sat on top of Sam's pile. He glanced through it quickly, then briefly at the autopsy photo again, then back across at Sam. "Bobcats don't do damage like that," he said.

Sam shook his head. "Not usually, no. And even if they do attack humans, they aren't big enough to leave marks that deep or that far apart. Combine it with the eyewitness accounts..."

"Wait," Dean interrupted. "There are witnesses?"

"Only two," Sam answered. "Hunters out walking their traps. They're the ones who found the body. And they've both been dismissed as unreliable."

"Why?"

Sam laid all of the papers in his hand back on the table and leaned back in his chair. "Because they said they saw a black lion."

Dean almost smiled. "Not many of those in Southern Illinois, are there?"

"Not many of those anywhere." Sam stood from the table and walked toward the bed he'd tossed his bags on.

The Oakridge Motel wasn't really different from any other motel they'd stayed in, except that maybe the rooms were a bit less worn looking and a bit better maintained. Simple dark blue bedspreads, newer-than-usual beige carpet, tasteful wallpaper, heavy oak furniture, and an air conditioner that actually worked were all unexpected bonuses. Even better, the plumbing actually worked, and the liquid that came out of it didn't look or smell like anything other than water.

They'd gotten to Memphis earlier that morning and checked in, then had gone out together for some extra research above and beyond what they'd been able to do online. After a few hours at Evans Public Library had failed to turn up anything even remotely supernatural in the town's history, they'd grabbed a quick lunch at the diner next to the motel and settled back into their room to start digging for other possibilities.

Sam pulled his laptop out of its bag and headed back to the table.

"How many have there been?" Dean asked as he leaned back in his chair.

"Charles Archer was the fourth." Sam pushed the laptop open and typed in his password. "In six weeks."

Dean pushed himself up from his chair and walked across the room aimlessly while his brother started the research again. "Four men turn up dead, ripped to shreds and missing all their hair, in less than two months, from a town of less than five hundred people, and no one thinks that's suspicious?"

"Even if they are suspicious, what are they going to blame it on?" Sam asked. "Wild animal attacks is the best they can come up with."

"What, they think Garfield's gone around the bend and started offing people?"

Sam rubbed his forehead with his fingers and shook his head. "Do you know what's killing them?"

Dean stopped pacing and leaned back against the wall. "What? No."

"And you know more about this kind of stuff than anyone in this town does." Sam looked Dean right in the eye. "If you don't know what's doing it, how are they supposed to figure it out?"

Dean scratched at the back of his head absently, then let his hands fall to his sides. "Okay. So where do we start? We've got nothing to go on but the bodies."

"Right." Sam looked back down at his laptop and started typing. "There's no history of anything supernatural here, not so much as a friendly local ghost, which is really weird. So whatever it is, it's probably not tied to this location."

"So what, then? A transplant? Like that scarecrow god in Burkitsville?"

Sam shrugged, trying not to think about what that particular god had almost cost them. It had been six months since they'd burned that apple tree, but the thought of how close he'd come to losing Dean that night – because he'd taken off after their father and left him alone, with no one to watch his back – still bothered him. Add in the fact that he'd met Meg while he was away from Dean, exposing them to the demon she worked for, almost resulting in all three Winchesters' deaths... Burkitsville, Indiana was one town that he didn't really want to revisit, literally or figuratively.

"Maybe. But that one left a really long line of vanished people stretching back hundreds of years. If there's something like that here, this is the first time it's acted up."

Dean pushed off of the wall and walked back to the table, put his hand on the back of Sam's chair and leaned over his shoulder. "Or maybe it just got here. What are you looking at?"

"Recent births. Maybe something's just been reborn?"

Dean shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Something that would kill this many men in such a short time, and in the exact same way every time, has a reason for it. It's probably been doing this for a while."

Sam chewed on his lip in thought. "Somebody summoned something, then? Or woke it up?"

"Check recent construction records," Dean suggested. "Maybe they dug it up."

Sam tapped on the keyboard, then scrolled down the screen, shaking his head as he did. "There's really not been much in the past year. A couple of houses by the lake, a new Wal-Mart out by the highway, a Taco Bell..."

Dean tapped the screen with his finger. "Some sort of religious center," he said. "Got any more details on that one?"

Sam clicked through a few links, and before long, he found himself looking at a website that explained exactly what sort of religious center had been built in Memphis and why. He leaned back in his chair, and Dean straightened his back and stood.

"Does that say...?" Dean began.

"Yeah," Sam answered with a nod of his head. "A temple. To the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet."

"That's a strange thing to find in Illinois."

Sam pulled up another window and typed Sekhmet's name into a search engine. Dean was still standing behind him, staring at the computer across his shoulder.

"How many black lions are there in Egyptian mythology?"

A jumble of images appeared on the screen, and Sam scrolled through them quickly. One of them caught his eye, and he clicked on the thumbnail to enlarge it. The image of Sekhmet that popped up left them with very little doubt as to what they were dealing with in Memphis, Illinois.

"At least one."

* * *

Dean climbed out of the Impala and tugged at the sleeves of the uncomfortable black suit as he walked around to the sidewalk and waited for Sam to get out. The sign in front of them said Grey's Funeral Home in swirly, elaborate letters. This was what passed for a medical examiner's office in Memphis, and the funeral director, David Grey, was also the county coroner.

"So we see if we can get anything from what's left of these bodies," he said, "and tonight, we go scope out that temple?"

Sam closed the car door and walked down the sidewalk with his brother. "I don't think we have to do it at night," he said. "The website said it's open to all visitors, twenty-four hours a day. There probably won't be much in the way of security."

Dean gave him a sideways glance as they walked. "How much security do you need if you can turn yourself into a lion?"

"True," Sam admitted. "But if we're gonna run into a lion, wouldn't you rather do it during the day?"

Dean pulled the funeral home's door open and motioned Sam to walk ahead of him. "I'd really rather not run into one at all."

"I have this feeling that we're not going to get much of a choice," Sam pointed out.

"Okay, so during the day," Dean conceded. "We'll be back to the motel before dark. The plan might change depending on what we find here, though."

They didn't have to go very far to find David Grey. The heavyset, bald man was walking down the hallway toward them when they walked in, and he held his hand out to them both immediately.

"Can I help you gentlemen with something?"

Dean reached into his pocket, pulled out the fake badge he'd gotten from the glove box, and flashed it; Sam did the same beside him. "Agents Mustaine and Ellefson, US Fish and Wildlife. We're here about the animal attacks. I understand you've got the bodies here?"

The man looked back and forth between them, obviously confused. Sam stepped forward.

"We're here because of the witness claims that there might be a lion involved."

David shook his head and smiled. "There's no lions around here. Not even mountain lions." He turned back down the hallway and motioned for them to follow him. "You boys are welcome to take a look, see if you can find something I missed, but I think you're wasting your time. You need to be looking for an overgrown bobcat, not a lion."

Dean and Sam shared a look of disbelief behind the mortician's back. "Do bobcats usually get big enough to be mistaken for lions?" Sam asked.

"Well, no," David answered as he pulled open the door to the embalming room. "That's why I said overgrown."

They followed him through the door, but stopped short when they saw the lump lying on the metal table, covered with a sheet. Sam and Dean both glanced around the room, looking for the drawers they'd been expecting to see.

David smiled when he saw the expressions on their faces. "Small town, boys. I make do with what I've got. Refrigeration units are through there, if you need to see his," he said, pointing at the door in the back wall. "He's been in number three since he got here. I pulled him out because I was getting ready to, well, get him ready."

"Ready for what?" Sam asked.

"Well, his funeral."

Dean straightened a bit in surprise. "You're burying him?"

"What else do you expect me to do with him?" David asked suspiciously.

"Where are the others?" Dean asked as he glanced around the room.

"Already in the ground." David crossed his arms across his chest. "You boys ain't from around here, are you?"

Dean shook his head wordlessly, and Sam turned back to the mortician. "No, we're not. We were expecting... we're just used to having more time to conduct an investigation."

"And those other bodies might have had evidence on them," Dean added.

"There wasn't any evidence," David said. "And you're not gonna get any from Charlie, either." Sam thought he detected a trace of sadness in his voice. "There's not enough of him left. His mother asked me for an open casket. Can you believe that?" When he shook his head and looked down at the floor, Sam knew that the sadness he'd heard was real. "Poor kid."

"Did you know him?" Sam asked.

David nodded slowly. "Of course I did. I've known all four of these boys since they were born. And now something's out there, tearing our boys apart, and I'm supposed to put them back together for their moms to bury..."

"What can you tell us about Archer?" Dean interrupted. "Anything in particular stand out about him?"

David shook his head and shrugged. "Charlie was a good kid. They were all good kids, all of 'em. Maybe a little confused, maybe chased the girls a bit more than they should have, maybe spent too much time at the bar, but what else were they going to do? A town this small doesn't really have much to offer boys like them."

"What bar is that?" Sam asked.

"The Oasis," David answered. "Only bar in town." He tilted his head in confusion. "Why do you care about that? They were killed by an animal in the woods, not by someone at the bar."

"We just need to check everything we can," Sam lied quickly. "Talk to people who knew him. Maybe he knew something about a lion being around here."

"I keep telling you, there's no lion around here. If you're going to stop what's really killing our sons, you're going to have to let that one go, boys." David sighed and turned back toward the door. "I'll be in my office when you're done. Just come find me and let me know when I can put this poor kid to rest."

* * *

David Grey was right about there not being enough of Charles Archer left to get any evidence from. But they'd learned quite a bit from what wasn't on what was left of his body.

"No sulfur," Sam said as they walked through the door and back into their room at the Oakridge.

Dean had already taken off his jacket and tie, and he was unbuttoning his white shirt as he walked across the room.

"No ectoplasm," Sam continued. "So whatever it is, it's not a demon or a spirit."

Dean slipped his shirt off and kicked off his shoes. "I thought we already decided that we're dealing with some sort of Egyptian god."

Sam shrugged, tossed his jacket down on his bed, and sat down. "I still think we are," he said. "But it doesn't hurt to eliminate the usual suspects."

Dean continued changing back into his normal clothes, and Sam stood and walked to the bathroom.

"If it wastes time, then it's hurting us," Dean said as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. "Because we've got a little over twenty-four hours before what ever this is kills again. What we need to do right now is figure out how to kill this... what's its name again?"

"Sekhmet," Sam called back through the open bathroom door.

"Yeah, Sekhmet. We need to figure out how to kill it."

"Her," Sam corrected.

"Her what?"

"Sekhmet's a goddess," Sam pointed out. He tossed the hand towel down on the sink and walked back into the bedroom. "She's a she. We need to figure out how to kill her."

Dean rolled his eyes. "She's an it," he said. "And we're gonna kill it." He walked to the table, flopped down in the chair, and opened the laptop as Sam started changing. He typed the password in and opened a browser. "So, how do you kill a goddess?"

Sam shook his head. "I have no idea. I mean, if the myths are anything to go by, then it was something different for each of them."

"Is there lore about the Egyptian gods, aside from the myths?"

"No," Sam admitted. "They're all we've got."

"Then the myths are what we go by," Dean said, tapping at the keyboard carefully. "So, all we need to do is look it up and figure out how to kill it."

Sam looked up from tying his shoes and smiled knowingly. "You haven't done much research on Egyptian mythology, have you?"

"No," Dean answered. "Never had to before." He looked up at Sam over the monitor. "Why?"

"Just read," Sam said, turning his attention back to his shoes.

A few minutes of silence followed, during which Dean continued his research and Sam waited for the inevitable outburst from his brother. He didn't have to wait very long.

"Oh, come on!" Dean shouted. The exasperation in his voice was obvious. "None of these sites say the same thing!"

Sam stood up and walked toward the desk, the small smile still in place on his lips. "Yeah," he said, dropping himself into the chair across the table from Dean.

"How the hell are we supposed to know what's true and what's not?" Dean leaned back in his chair and gestured angrily at the computer.

"We read through all the different stories and pick out the parts that they all have in common," Sam explained. "It's not one hundred percent accurate, but it's as close to true as we're ever going to get. The biggest problem is figuring out which 'facts' are metaphors and which are actual facts. Because a lot of these old myths and legends are filled with symbolic meanings that aren't immediately clear."

"Metaphors and symbolism, huh?"

"Yeah."

Dean spun the laptop around and shoved it across the table. "Have at, nerdboy."

Sam grinned, looked down at the screen, and started scanning the pages Dean had found.

* * *

"Okay. Let's recap." Dean downed the glass of water he'd just filled, put the glass back in the sink, and turned around. "So, Sekhmet is the goddess of, well... sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, basically."

Sam rolled his eyes but nodded his head. "Yeah, basically."

"And the sun dude..."

"Ra," Sam supplied.

"Right. Ra got pissed off and sent her to kill all the men?"

"All of mankind," Sam corrected. "Not just men."

"Yeah, but she's only killing men."

Sam glanced up briefly. "So we think she's taking the 'man' part of mankind literally?"

Dean walked over and sat heavily on the end of his bed. "Then this Ra guy changed his mind, but he couldn't think of a way to stop her. So he got her drunk and she just forgot she was supposed to kill everyone?"

"Yep."

"So where's she been for the past three thousand years? Why haven't we run across her before?"

Sam shook his head in confusion. "I don't know. Maybe she just remembered what she was sent to do?"

"A three thousand year bender," Dean said, pursing his lips in consideration. "That sounds fun."

Sam looked up at him with narrowed eyes, and the smile disappeared from Dean's face.

"So we know how to stop her in the short term. But we still have no idea how to kill her."

Sam sighed. "No," he said slowly.

"We need more intel."

Dean pushed himself up from the bed he'd just settled on and turned around. He picked up his leather jacket and put it on.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked.

"We need to go see that temple, remember? And we've got the name of the bar that all of the dead guys hung out at. We need to check them both, and you made a good point about doing it before dark."

"Wait, what?" Sam closed the laptop and stood. "You want to split up?"

Dean nodded quickly. "Yeah."

"No," Sam argued. "The youngest victim so far is twenty-five. The oldest is twenty-seven."

"So?"

"So, men your age are disappearing and turning up ripped to shreds by the lion form of an Egyptian goddess that we don't know how to kill. Splitting up is not a good idea."

"Aw, you're worried."

Dean patted Sam's cheek, a sarcastic smile on his face, and Sam batted his hand away in irritation. Dean dropped the playful attitude and became serious.

"I'll be fine, Sam. It's a small-town bar on a Friday afternoon. What's the worst that could happen?"

Sam blinked his eyes slowly and stared back at his brother. He didn't really expect an answer to that question, did he?

Dean sighed. "Just keep your eyes open. Nothing's gonna happen. Besides, those guys all disappeared from the diner on Saturday night. We'll go there together tomorrow, but we don't have enough time to check the bar and the temple out today unless we split up. We've got to move fast if we're going to stop it from killing again."

Sam had been shaking his head the entire time Dean talked.

"It's just a little recon. You take the temple, I'll take the bar, and we'll meet back here in three hours to compare notes, okay?"

"I don't like it, Dean," Sam protested.

"Call each other every fifteen minutes," Dean said. He picked their father's journal up from the table and held it up. "Keep in constant contact," he said as he slipped the journal into his jacket. "Anything looks suspicious, we report it."

"It's a bad idea." Sam knew he sounded like a broken record, but he couldn't shake the feeling that splitting up was a terrible plan. Bad things happened when they weren't together – Dean had to know that as well as Sam did.

"We need the information, Sam." Dean clapped him on the shoulder before he walked past him and toward the door. "We'll be fine."


	3. Part Two

**Part Two**

Sam sighed, slipped his phone back into his pocket, and leaned against the tree at his back. He rolled his head around on his neck a few times and flexed his shoulders, hoping to work out some of the soreness that was starting to creep into his muscles. He'd been crouching in the same position for over two hours, at the base of a tree that stood on a hill overlooking the small rough-stone temple, and he was beginning to wish that he and Dean had switched places.

He tried, and failed, to stifle the yawn.

Dean was sitting in an air-conditioned bar, on a padded stool, talking to – in Dean's words – a "gorgeous" bartender. Nothing had happened in either place.

Sam had gone into the temple when he'd first arrived, and though he'd kept his hand on his weapon the entire time, he hadn't needed it. No one was there, except for a quiet, mousy-looking librarian type young woman who'd met him on the steps, introduced herself as Ede, and told him she was the priestess. His alert level raised on meeting her, because being a priestess made her a likely suspect for being the goddess herself.

He told her he was a reporter working on an article about the resurgence of ancient religions, specifically Egyptian, and she'd been more than happy to give him any information she could. He'd talked to her for a few minutes, even picked up some literature from her about the temple and Sekhmet. She was soft-spoken and friendly, with long, wavy brown hair and large brown eyes. She almost radiated a kindness and gentleness that put him at ease, and by the time he left the temple, he'd dismissed her as a suspect completely.

He'd decided to stick around and watch the temple from a safe distance, to see if anyone else showed up, on the off-chance that he could identify someone who presented even a small threat. He also wanted to be there when Ede left, so he could go back inside by himself and look around a bit more. But in all the time that he'd been there, no one else had come by, and Ede hadn't gone anywhere.

He glanced down at his watch; he still had twelve minutes before his next check-in with Dean. If nothing had happened by then, he was going to recommend to Dean that they head back to the motel for a while. They could come back later on that night, when no one was around, to see if they could find anything.

"You don't have to sneak around out here. You're more than welcome to come inside and talk to me, if you have questions."

Sam froze in place, then took a deep breath and turned around slowly. He'd recognized Ede's voice as soon as she'd started talking, but he was surprised to see her standing behind him all the same. He'd been watching the temple constantly for the past hour and a half, and he'd never seen her leave. His confusion must have shown on his face, because she tucked her hair behind one ear and smiled up at him shyly.

"There is a back door, you know," she said softly.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked toward her, being careful not to trip over the tree roots that poked up out of the ground around him.

"Why are you out here?" he asked. "A strange man sitting under a tree watching the building that you're alone in? Aren't you afraid of me?"

"You don't seem very scary," she answered with a shrug. Her round, wire-rimmed glasses slid down her nose, and she pushed them back into place with one finger.

"But it's dangerous," he pointed out. "You're out here by yourself, anything could happen. Do you have some sort of security? An animal, at least?"

She shook her head. "I'm sure you can imagine, an Egyptian temple in Illinois doesn't get many visitors, and the people who live here aren't really thrilled with me. They're not very polite about saying that, either. The fact that you came at all makes you automatically nicer than about ninety-five percent of the people I know. Besides," she continued, taking a step toward him, "I am an excellent judge of character."

Sam couldn't think of anything to say to that. He turned and looked back down the hill at the temple.

"Can I look around the inside?" he asked, figuring it was worth a shot. The more he talked to Ede the less he thought it possible for her to be Sekhmet, and there was nothing to be gained by continuing to lurk outside when she knew he was out there.

"Sure you can," she answered. "I promise I don't bite. And if you want to hear it, I'll tell you everything I know about the goddess."

* * *

He was starting to think that splitting up had been a bad idea after all.

Nothing bad had happened in the two hours since they'd separated. Actually, nothing had happened at all. He was beginning to wish that he'd told Sam to scope out the bar and gone to the temple himself, because – only place in town or not – the bar was even more boring than he'd thought it would be.

The bartender was nice to look at, sure, all long black hair, tanned skin, and green eyes. Her jeans fit exactly right, and she knew just how to swing her hips to great effect when she moved. He smiled at her as she walked back over to the barstool he'd chosen, one that gave him an unobstructed view of every table and everyone that walked through the door.

"You want something?" she asked.

She'd asked him half a dozen times since he'd been there, and each time, he'd thought about giving in and ordering something. But he was working a job, simple recon or not, and the thought of how pissed Sam would be if he decided to throw back some booze had been enough to stop him. His resolve got a bit weaker every time she asked, though, and he was beginning to think that he was going to take her up on it soon.

But not this time, he thought, as he gave her his most charming smile. "Maybe I'm just here to enjoy the view."

She smiled back at him, put her elbows on the bar, and leaned forward. "Nothing wrong with that," she said. Her voice was smooth and low, throaty, as close to a real purr as he'd ever heard. "Can't say I'm not doing the same."

The way she looked at him, the way her eyes moved up and down what she could see of his body, left no doubt about her meaning. There was something about her eyes that drew him in, made it impossible to look away. There was a depth to them, they almost glowed from within, and they somehow made him think of warm sun and sand.

"I need more from you," she whispered throatily. Dean swallowed hard. "If you don't ask me for something soon, I'm going to have to make you leave."

Dean tilted his head and grinned. "You'll make me?"

"Oh, I can make you," she returned. She leaned further across the bar, giving him an unobstructed view down the front of her low-cut pink shirt as she reached out and ran the manicured nails on the fingers of her right hand up and down his arm. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he shivered as a sudden chill ran through him.

"Yeah, I bet ya can."

She flashed another quick smile before turning away and walking toward the customer at the other end of the bar.

Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe splitting up hadn't been such a bad idea after all.

* * *

"So, this is all it is?"

Sam was surprised by the simplicity of the "temple." It wasn't a temple at all, at least not the kind he'd been expecting. It was a small, simple room in the center of a small, simple block building. There were no temple paintings, neither painted directly on the walls nor hanging from them. There was no ornamentation, nothing ostentatious or pretentious. The altar itself, which sat directly under a small skylight, was nothing more than a small series of wooden shelves with a two-foot-tall statue of Sekhmet, her human body and her lion head, standing on top of it. Small, unlit torches stood to either side of it.

"This is it," Ede answered.

Sam circled the altar slowly, looking carefully for anything that might alert him that things weren't what they appeared to be. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can."

"Why Sekhmet?" He didn't think Ede was the goddess, and barely believed that he'd ever suspected her, but maybe he could get some idea of who it might be from her. "Out of all the goddesses you could have chosen, why the one that Ra sent to kill humanity? I mean, you don't really seem the type to worship someone that violent."

Ede shook her head and leaned back against the wall. "She wasn't... okay, yes, the myths say that she was sent to kill mankind, but she didn't actually go through with it. The stories say that Ra filled the Nile with wine the color of blood, and she drank so much that she forgot that Ra had sent her to kill mankind, but that's not what happened at all. Ra was her husband, and he didn't give her the respect she deserved. I mean, she was a goddess, but he treated her like she was his property, like he could do or say anything he wanted to her just because she was a woman. And she was so angry with him about it that she decided to take revenge on him by killing the people that he'd built in his own image."

Sam nodded his head in understanding. "So it wasn't mankind she was going to kill," he said. "It was just the men."

"Exactly. But because she was willing to do that, and capable of doing it, Ra realized that she was just as strong as he was, and he started to respect her as an equal. She did drink the wine in the Nile, but she'd always enjoyed her alcohol. I don't think it had as much to do with stopping her as the myths say it did. But not killing the men was her choice. She walked away from it willingly. "

"The first feminist."

Ede nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, that's it exactly. She had a power over men, and she could have bent them all to her will so easily, but she never used it. She built herself on her own strength, the strength she had in her just from being a woman, and the legacy she left behind is so empowering."

"Bent them to her will?" Sam was suddenly very glad that Ede had followed him up onto that hill, because he had learned more from her in five minutes than he and Dean had learned on their own in two hours. "She could hypnotize people?"

"Not all people, just men. All she had to do was smile at them, and they'd follow her anywhere, do anything she asked. She could have abused that power so badly, might have been tempted to do so if she'd gone through with killing them all, but she didn't. Sekhmet was truly a benevolent goddess. She's not really as horrible or Godless as the people around here would have you think she was."

Sam was truly impressed at the depth of Ede's knowledge, but at the same time, he questioned its origins. The difference between what Ede believed and what the legends said was so vast, and there was really only one place she could have gotten that information. "I've been studying her for a while," he said. "I've never heard anything like that. How did you learn it?"

"Miranda told me."

Sam tilted his head in equal parts confusion and interest. "Wait. Miranda? Who's Miranda?"

"Oh, she's my partner. Or, I guess, not really partner. Building the temple was her idea, and she paid for it all. She came to me when she found out that I had an interest in the goddess, and we..."

"So you didn't build it?" A sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through Sam's veins. They'd spent the whole day in Memphis without a single lead on who Sekhmet might be, but suddenly there was Miranda – a woman who knew more about Sekhmet than anyone had a right to, the one who'd built a temple to her.

"No," Ede answered slowly with a shake of her head. "Miranda did. We'd been friends for a few years, but when she quit drinking, she really turned her life around, you know? She surrounded herself with images and legends about the goddess, and she taught me everything she..."

Sam's heart jumped into his throat, then fell into his stomach. "She quit drinking? How long ago?"

Ede shrugged. "About three months, I guess. Why?"

"Where is she?" His voice was raising in both pitch and volume, and he knew it, but he couldn't control it. "Where can I find her?"

"Um..." Ede looked uncertain, and Sam stepped forward insistently.

"Please. It's important. I really need to talk to her."

"Why?"

"Research," he answered honestly. "For that article. I'd love to hear it directly from your source."

"Oh! Oh, of course. It's Friday, right? She's probably at work."

Sam stepped forward again, but stopped himself just short of grabbing Ede by the arms. "Where does she work?"

Ede took a small step back. "She owns The Oasis," she said softly. "She's the bartender."

* * *

Dean glanced down at his watch again. It was almost time for his last check-in with Sam, but he didn't really feel like calling him again just to report to each other that nothing was happening in either place. He had five minutes left before his phone would ring, and he figured that he might as well spend it walking back to the motel. He'd just tell Sam to wrap up the recon and meet him there so they could regroup. They could always head back to the temple later that night, when no one was around.

He stood up from the barstool and turned to leave, but found his way blocked by the bartender, whose name he still hadn't learned.

"Sorry. Guess I'm not in the mood to drink tonight after all. I'll just get out of your way."

He couldn't explain why he stepped away from her when she walked forward, but he did. Before he knew it, he was backed up against the bar, almost bent back across it, with the heavy wooden rail that circled it digging into his back.

She laid her fingers on the back of his hand, then walked her hand up his arm and across his chest. Sliding her fingers up the side of his neck and into his hair, she pulled him toward her. Part of him was screaming that this was a really bad idea, that he was supposed to be working and he needed to concentrate, but he ignored it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply; she smelled like cinnamon and honey.

She pressed her nails against the back of his neck and pulled him closer. She moved to the right just a bit, and he could feel her lips brushing lightly against his ear and her warm breath caressing his neck.

"Are you a bad boy?" she whispered.

He swallowed again and opened his eyes. He couldn't clear his head, couldn't think. The scent of her, so close to him, was almost more intoxicating than anything he could have ordered from behind that bar. This was all happening too fast, and he knew it wasn't right, but he couldn't stop himself.

"I can be," he forced out. His heart was pounding in his chest, his blood was rushing through his ears, and his whole world had narrowed until he could only see her. He no longer cared about his inability to pull himself away, because he'd lost all desire to do it. "If you want me to."

"Tell me what you want," she countered. "I'll give it to you."

She let go of his neck and stepped away quickly, and Dean almost collapsed against the bar. He lifted his head slightly and blinked at her in confusion.

"To drink," she said. "What do you want to drink?"

He forced himself to take a breath, pushed away from the bar with arms shaking so badly that they could barely support him, and settled back on his stool. She walked around the end of the bar and went behind it again, then leaned her elbows against it again.

"Whatever you want me to."

He had no idea why he'd said that, because he knew he couldn't drink anything but water. He was working a case, he'd split up from Sam, he had to keep his eyes open in case something happened. They were both vulnerable, alone, separated at his own insistence. Something could go wrong. They were about to face off against an Egyptian goddess, one they still didn't know how to kill, and every detail might be important.

She put a glass down on the bar in front of him, then reached out and brushed at the hair above his ear with her fingers. "Your hair is short," she observed. "I like that."

He forced himself to concentrate, but he couldn't hold on to any of his thoughts long enough to make sense of what was happening. Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll, that's what they were after. She could be anyone, anywhere, because they had no idea what she looked like. They didn't know where to find her, or how she picked her victims, or how she got them under her control...

_Oh, shit._

"Drink it."

The voice was smooth and rough, strong and sexy, and it echoed in his ears. It was a commanding voice, and it had given him an order that for some reason he was completely and totally powerless to disobey.

He fought to stop himself, but he couldn't. He had no control over his body at all, and it was moving against his will. He put every thought and every ounce of strength he had into stopping his hand, but all he managed to do was make it shake slightly as he picked the shot glass up, held it to his lips, and slammed it back.

He felt it immediately, the fire that flowed down his throat, across his chest and into his veins, stealing his breath and making his vision go dark. He could feel his body standing up and walking away from the bar. He couldn't see anything, but he somehow knew that it didn't matter. Someone was controlling his body well enough to get him moving toward the door, but it sure as hell wasn't him.

The darkness spread from his vision into his mind, and he felt the last of his consciousness being stripped away. He had time for one last thought before everything went black.

_Sam's gonna kill me._

* * *

_I'm gonna kill him!_

Sam burst through the front door of the temple and jumped down the stairs. He was racing toward the Impala at full speed as he listened to Dean's voice telling him to leave a message.

"Dean! It's the bartender! Sekhmet's the bartender! And she can hypnotize men with her mind." He skidded to a stop just short of the car and reached for the door handle. "I'm coming to you. I'll be there in five minutes. If you get this before then, get out of there. Do **not** hit on her. Do you hear me?" He jumped behind the wheel and jammed the key into the ignition. "Stay away from her, and don't drink anything!"

He snapped his phone closed and tossed it down in the seat as he sped out of the parking lot.

Five minutes was an overestimate, because he made it in three. He didn't even take the time to shut the car off, figuring that Dean could ream him out about it later, after he made sure he was safe, after he had him out of the bar. He ran through the door, already out of breath, and his eyes scanned the mostly-empty room rapidly. There was a man behind the bar – a short, skinny, pimply-face kid who barely looked old enough to be working there – drawing a beer for a man who sat alone one one of the few occupied barstools.

Dean wasn't there.

Sam wasted no time crossing the floor and grabbing the kid by the front of his shirt, knocking the partially filled mug from his hands, almost pulling him across the bar.

"Where's my brother?" he demanded.

"Who... what?" The bartender sputtered and batted at Sam's hands frantically. "Who are you?"

"My brother!" he repeated. "Where is he?"

"Listen, buddy," the bartender pleaded. "I don't know who you are, and I don't want no trouble in here."

Sam leaned forward until his face was only inches from the kid's.

"Then tell me where my brother is," he said, his voice low, the threat behind the words clear.

"Okay, okay, hang on. You brother... good lookin' guy? Short hair, leather jacket?"

Sam didn't speak, but tightened his hands on the kid's collar.

"He's gone. Not here. He left!"

"Left when?" Sam asked slowly.

"About ten minutes ago," the kid answered.

"Was he alone?"

"No. No, with Miranda. They..."

Sam released him immediately. He landed on his feet awkwardly and stumbled back away from the bar.

"Miranda," Sam breathed. He nodded his head and ran his hand across his mouth. "Okay, so where does this Miranda live?"

The bartender smiled at him, an almost conspiratorial smile. "You sure you wanna go bustin' in on 'em, buddy? They was all over each other. Might be kinda..."

"Where!" Sam lunged for the kid again, but he put his hand up and backed away.

"Okay, okay! Look, I don't know where she lives, okay? I mean, she's my boss, man. All I know is that she don't live in town."

Sam took a deep breath and pushed down the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm him. He needed to find Dean, and he needed to do it immediately, but he'd be no help to him at all if he ran off half-cocked. He had to come up with a plan, and he still needed to figure out how to kill Sekhmet.

"So who might know?"

The bartender shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe that Ede girl, the one out at that crazy temple? They're pretty close."

Sam nodded his head, spun on his heel, and headed for the door.

* * *

Dean Winchester was not a man who was easy to surprise.

He didn't know exactly what it said about him or his life that he immediately recognized that he was tied up and, if the lack of floor under his bare feet meant anything, hanging from the ceiling, but he was pretty sure it wasn't good.

He opened his eyes slowly and lifted his pounding head as carefully as he could. The basement wasn't much of a surprise, either, not really. He knew that monsters and spirits seemed to have a fondness for dank, damp holes in the ground, and he guessed that moldy Egyptian gods weren't all that different.

It took him a few seconds longer than it should have to process his situation, but even if he hadn't been groggy and his vision hadn't been blurry, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. There was a door directly across from him, which appeared to be the only way in or out of the room. There was no furniture, no windows, and the only light source was a bare bulb that hung from the ceiling above his head. There was a lump in the corner of the room that looked like it might be his leather jacket, and he guessed that his shoes and socks were somewhere near it. A quick glance above his head confirmed his belief that knowing where the door was wouldn't do him any good, because unless he could magically untie himself, he couldn't get to it to leave.

He squirmed a bit, testing the strength of the ropes that held him and the tightness of the knots, and he found both to be more than adequate. He could almost stand flat on the floor if he stretched, but doing that put more pressure on his shoulders and pulled the ropes around his wrists even tighter, so he decided that it wasn't worth the effort. There wasn't anything he could do to get himself out of the situation, so he'd have to wait for Sam to find him.

Sam, who was at the temple by himself. Sam, who told him from the very beginning that splitting up was a bad idea. Sam, who – even though Dean didn't doubt that he already knew he was missing – had no idea where he was.

"Well, this sucks," he said to himself.

He wasn't the least bit surprised when the door opened and the bartender walked through it.

"Let me guess," he said. His voice sounded weaker than he wanted it to, slurred and shaky, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. "Sekhmet?"

He knew she smiled at him, even though his vision was still cloudy. He imagined it was the same sultry, seductive smile she'd used in the bar, but it didn't seem to have the same effect on him that it had before. His mind wasn't any muddier than it had been to start with, his thoughts weren't wandering off without him, and he didn't feel any sudden desire to throw himself at her feet and be her willing slave.

"Yes. But most people call me Miranda, now."

He'd thought her voice sounded like a purr the first time he heard it. Knowing that she could turn herself into a lion didn't do anything to change that impression.

Dean blinked repeatedly, trying once more to clear his vision, but it didn't help. "Well, I have to say that you look damn good for an old chick."

Sekhmet walked toward him, clicking her tongue at him as she sauntered across the floor. He was almost glad that his eyes weren't working right, because he had a feeling that if he could have really seen her swing those hips, he'd have reacted to her the same way he had at the bar.

"Oh, Dean," she said. "Dean, Dean, Dean."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said, mimicking her tone of voice. He pulled against the ropes around his wrists in the hopes of taking some of the weight off of his already aching shoulders, but he didn't have the strength to do it. His muscles were obviously as sluggish as the rest of him was. Even if he could manage to get himself down, which he knew wasn't happening, he doubted that he'd be able to stay on his feet long enough to run.

"I've been reading your diary, Dean. What I've learned about you is absolutely fascinating."

Dean didn't let his reaction to that information show on his face. He vaguely remembered picking his dad's journal up from the table as they left the motel and sticking it in his jacket. If he'd realized then that he was going to end up with an ancient Egyptian goddess going through his pockets, he'd have left it behind.

"You think you can kill me?"

"Yeah, well." He'd have shrugged if he could, but as it was, the most he could do was shift a bit in the ropes. "That's the plan, anyway."

"I was right about you." She'd been moving toward him the entire time, and he'd known it, but he couldn't stop himself from flinching away when she pressed the palm of her hand against the side of his face. "You are such a bad boy."

Dean closed his eyes and turned away. "And you are so much hotter when I'm drugged."

The fingers that had been pressed so sensually against his skin were suddenly digging into his jaw with bruising force, and he could see the glare she leveled at him despite his blurred vision. "You will learn to respect me," she hissed at him.

"Whatever you say, lady." He forced the words out, ignoring the pain that moving his mouth against her hold caused. "But first things first. How about we have a drink or two, you and me? That stuff you gave me earlier was pretty good. Maybe we could..."

Sekhmet snorted and released her grip, and Dean worked his jaw up and down a few times.

"Did you really think that I would fall for that little trick again?" she said with derision. "I've been clean and sober for almost ninety days, and I am incredibly proud of that fact. In fact, I'll be presented with my chip at my next meeting. You wouldn't want to sabotage my sobriety, would you?"

"You gotta be kidding me," Dean groaned. "You joined AA? Which step are you working? I admit I'm no expert, but I don't remember anything about 'go crazy and kill people'."

"My spiritual awakening," she responded evenly. "Carrying the message to others."

"What message? That you're psycho?"

She grabbed the back of his neck with her fingers again and pulled his head down toward hers. She snaked her other arm around his waist and pressed her lower body tightly against him. "That I am a strong, compassionate, and loving goddess, if you obey me" she whispered in his ear. He shuddered when her lips touched his ear again. "But if you don't..."

Dean tried to look down at her face, but she was standing too close. The most he could manage was a glance at the top of her head. She must have felt him move, because she turned her face up and smiled at him.

"What if I don't?" He asked the question more to stall for time than because he wanted to hear the answer.

"If you don't obey me, then you will entertain me," she answered. "In any way I see fit."

"Sorry, sweetheart." He twitched his arms and tugged on the ropes around his wrists. "I'm not really in the mood."

Sekhmet pulled back slightly and moved her hands from his waist and neck to either side of his face. "But I am," she whispered. She bit down on her bottom lip as she raked her eyes up and down Dean's body again. "And I am the one in control."

"Yeah, pretty sure you're not in control of that," he answered snidely. "Not gonna be much fun without me, is it?"

"Ah, ah, ah," she chastised, lightly brushing her fingertips across his mouth. "What you want doesn't matter, Dean, because I can make you."

_Double shit._

She leaned forward, pulled his body close again, and planted her lips firmly against his.

No, Dean Winchester wasn't an easy man to surprise. But this chick was really damn good at it.


	4. Part Three

**Part Three**

Sam took a deep breath, closed the car door, and walked back toward the temple. He was trying his hardest to hide the emotions that were rushing through him, so that he could play the part he'd cast himself in – that of an impartial and uninvolved journalist – but it was harder than he thought it should be.

Every minute that went by was another minute that Dean was alone with Sekhmet. Every minute that Sam spent composing himself was another minute that Sekhmet could be tearing his brother apart. Every minute that he wasted trying to find out where Miranda lived brought him another minute closer to finding what was left of Dean's body lying in the woods.

He didn't want to think about it, he couldn't think about it, but no matter how hard he tried to push it away, it just wouldn't go. He wanted to run back into the temple as quickly as he'd run out of it, demand that Ede give him the information he needed to find and save Dean, but he couldn't afford to scare her away. He needed her help, in more ways than one, and if the only way to get her to lead him to the place his brother might have been taken was to pretend to be just another roving reporter, then that was what he'd have to do.

He just wished it wasn't so damn hard, or that there wasn't quite as much riding on the outcome.

Ede was standing in the door at the top of the stairs, and it looked like she'd been waiting for him. "Is everything all right?" she asked. "Why'd you leave so fast?"

He stopped on the ground at the base of the steps and looked up at her, swallowed hard, and forced himself to smile.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I just got so excited to meet your friend, the way you talked, she knows so much more than I've learned from any of my research." He shrugged and managed to both look and sound embarrassed. "And it turned out that I was too late, anyway. She left right before I got there."

"Oh." Ede looked surprised. "That's odd for her. On Friday night, she stays until they close down. She doesn't trust Denver enough to run it by himself if it gets too busy."

"Denver, that's the other bartender? The young one?"

Ede nodded quickly. "Yes. He's just barely twenty-one, and he doesn't have much experience with, well, anything, really. Miranda took a bit of a liking to him, though, and wanted to give him a chance. He's a nice boy. A little slow, maybe, but harmless."

"Yeah, I, um..." Sam scratched absently at the back of his head. "I talked to him a bit. He's actually the reason why I came back."

Ede tilted her head in question.

"Denver said that he doesn't know where Miranda lives, but that you do?" He saw her step back, saw her starting to shake her head in protest, and knew that he had to think fast to keep her on his side. "I really hate to bother you, but I'm under this massive deadline. If I want the article in this week's issue, I have to have it turned in by tomorrow afternoon. I thought I'd get enough information just from my research and the tour you gave me, but Miranda knows so much, and it would do so much good if my readers could hear it from her directly. I just have this feeling that..." _My brother's going to die if I don't find him right now!_ "… it would go a long way toward helping people understand you and what it is you do here if they knew as much as you do."

He watched her face while she considered it, and he knew the exact second she made her decision.

"Wait here," she said. "Let me get my jacket."

* * *

He felt like crap.

He'd passed out again, not long after Sekhmet kissed him, and she was gone when he came back around. Nothing about his situation had changed, except that his shoulders hurt worse and he was starting to lose feeling in his hands. There was a little blood dripping into his eye from a scratch on his forehead – those fingernails were dangerous when Sekhmet got excited – but most of it was dried already.

He was almost grateful that he'd passed out, because it seemed to have worked in his favor in the end. His clothes were still on, he was positive that she hadn't done what she'd wanted to do, and he was still alive. And as far as he was concerned, the longer he could keep those three things from changing, the better.

He was really hoping that Sam had managed to figure out what had happened to him and where he was. He didn't know how much good he'd be or how much he could help with his own rescue, but he'd give it everything he had, if Sam gave him the chance. He had a feeling that his arms weren't going to work very well, if at all, after he got down, and as weak as he felt in general, he had no idea if his legs would, either.

It was obvious that whatever she'd used on him was a lot more powerful than anything he'd ever seen or felt before. That fact alone was enough to worry him, because he'd seen and felt a whole hell of a lot. He had no way of knowing how long he'd been in that basement, but he guessed that it had to be a couple of hours at least, and his head was still pounding and his eyes still weren't working right. He was starting to think that maybe she'd dosed him again while he was out, because he almost felt worse than he had the first time he woke up.

His body wanted to pass out again, because he hurt all over, and if he was out cold then at least he couldn't feel it, but he wouldn't let himself take the easy way out. He had to stay awake, both to be ready for Sam and because there was no way he wanted Sekhmet creeping around on him while he was unconscious.

In the end, it wasn't his decision to make. When the claws that he hadn't been expecting raked down his back, and the pain shot all the way down his legs and up his arms, and he jerked in his ropes and cried out in pain... his eyes closed and his head fell forward, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

* * *

"A silver arrow? Are you sure that's all it is?"

Sam was surprised at how easy it had been to get Ede talking about how to kill Sekhmet. She obviously enjoyed talking about her goddess, and she'd been telling the truth when she told Sam she'd answer any question he asked of her. He knew that she wouldn't have been quite so willing to answer him if she'd known she was explaining to him how to kill her best friend, so he kept that part to himself.

"A flaming silver arrow," Ede said. "Through the heart."

Sam glanced over at her quickly, then focused on the road again. "That seems a bit too easy, though. I mean, shouldn't it be harder to kill a goddess than a normal person? Just one arrow through the heart isn't that hard."

"Well, there's a catch, of course," Ede said with a small smile. "She had to be in her lion form for it to work, and she couldn't be forced to change. That would have made it a lot harder than it sounds. She could have outrun any human on the planet without trying, and if she decided to attack instead... I'm sure there aren't that many people who could aim that well while they were being attacked by a lion."

Sam took a deep breath and nodded in agreement. Yes, that little provision would make it a lot harder to kill her than he'd hoped it would be.

"So if Miranda worships Sekhmet so much, why would she tell you how to kill her?"

Ede turned her head and stared at him. "Because it's just a story, Sam. Sekhmet's not human anymore, if she ever was. She's just an ideal, the basis of a philosophy. I mean, you do understand that we're not talking about a real person, right?"

"Oh, of course," he answered quickly. "I was just curious, that's all."

"Oh!" Ede straightened in the seat beside him and pointed out the windshield. "It's right there. That driveway on the right. The house is back behind those trees."

Sam turned where she'd indicated and drove up the small lane slowly. The large house that took shape in front of him was almost more surprising to him in its simplicity than the temple and altar had been. He'd gotten the impression from Ede that Miranda had quite a bit of money, but she worked in a bar and she'd purposely made her temple small and unassuming. He wondered if she was doing it in an effort to stay hidden or if she honestly didn't believe in materialistic things.

He pulled to a stop close enough to the house to walk, but far enough away that Miranda wouldn't be able to see him from the house. His plan was risky, and it put Ede in more danger than he'd have liked, but he didn't see that he had much of a choice. He was trusting that Miranda's hatred was specifically reserved for men and that she wouldn't hurt someone she considered a friend. If he turned out to be wrong about that, then he could only hope that he'd be able to stop Miranda if things got out of control.

Ede was already heading for the house, and he called out to her. "I'm just going to get my recording equipment out of the trunk, okay? Why don't you go on ahead and let her know about me."

"Sure," Ede said brightly.

He waited until Ede had climbed the stairs to the wrap-around porch, and then he ducked behind the car to stay out of sight. He saw the front door open, saw the shadow of someone in the door, and he pushed himself further into the shadows.

"Come on in when you're ready, Sam!" he heard Ede call out to him. Then the front door closed, and he was alone outside.

He jumped to his feet, threw open the trunk, tucked a large knife under the waistband of his jeans, and grabbed the crossbow and handful of the silver bolts that they kept around just in case. It wasn't an arrow, per se, but he hoped it would be close enough. He wrapped some gauze around three of the bolts, doused them with lighter fluid, loaded one of the bolts into place, and checked to make sure he had a lighter in his pocket. Then he closed the trunk as quietly as he could and stepped back into the trees. Using the darkness of the woods as cover, he made his way around to the back, hoping to find a bulkhead door back there that would lead him into the basement.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he saw it.

He wasted no time entering the house, and he made no noise while he was doing it. The basement hallway he'd entered was dark and narrow – he could hold his hands out to his sides and touch the walls on both sides of him. He saw a glow under and around a door in one of the walls about ten feet in front of him, and he headed directly for it, hoping against hope that it really would be that easy to find Dean. He held the crossbow out in front of him, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

The sight of his brother – head down, hands tied tightly above his head with heavy rope, hanging from the ceiling beam – was both welcome and unwanted. Welcome because he'd found him, unwanted because he couldn't tell at first glance if he was still alive or not.

"Dean!" he whispered insistently as he ran toward him. "Hey, Dean! Hey!"

Dean didn't move, didn't moan, didn't respond at all. Sam stopped right in front of him, held the crossbow down at his side, and lifted Dean's head slowly with his other hand. There was still no response.

"Dean? Can you hear me?"

Slowly, far too slowly for Sam's liking, Dean's eyelashes started to flutter as he started to come around.

"There ya go," Sam encouraged. "Come on, Dean. You gotta wake up."

Dean's eyes opened and closed a few times before he managed to keep them open all the way. Even them, he continued to blink rapidly, almost like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Sammy?"

"Yeah, Dean, it's me," Sam answered quickly. He put the crossbow on the floor at his feet and pulled the knife out of his waistband. "Give me just a second, and I'll get you down."

"Sekhmet...," Dean gasped. "Don't know where..."

"She's upstairs," Sam answered. "We've gotta move fast. I don't know how much time we have."

He reached above their heads and started sawing at the heavy rope that secured Dean's bound hands to the beam.

"Legs... feel funny," Dean said. "Don't know if they... if they're gonna hold me up."

"I gotcha, Dean," Sam assured him. "If I have to carry you, I will, but I'm getting you out of here."

"Not carryin' me," Dean insisted weakly.

"Can we worry about that later?" He was almost through the ropes, and he diverted all of his attention to them. "Get ready."

The rope broke free, and Dean fell the two inches to the floor. It was immediately obvious that his legs weren't going to hold him up, because they collapsed underneath him, and Sam had to grab him and pull him against his chest before he hit the floor. The second Sam wrapped his arms around his back, Dean cried out in pain. Sam looked down quickly, saw the blood on his hands and the slices down the back of Dean's shirt, and he groaned.

"Damn it, Dean. You're a mess."

"Fix it later," Dean said. He struggled to take his weight back on his legs, but was still leaning heavily against Sam. He held his hands out. "Get me loose."

Sam tugged and pulled at the knots frantically, cursing under his breath as he did. They were tied tightly and the knots were more complicated than he'd expected them to be. He was just finishing the last knot when Dean stiffened against him.

"Sam!"

Without thinking, Sam wrapped his arms around Dean and leaned forward, using his own body to shield his brother from whatever had just come up behind him. His suspicions about who – or what – it was were confirmed when he felt the claws sink deep into his back and slice through it.

The pain was incredible.

He lost his hold on Dean immediately and dropped him to the floor. Before he had time to recover from the viciousness of the attack, he felt himself grabbed and thrown back-first against the wall. He managed to keep his feet under him, but he could feel his knees shaking and knew he wouldn't be able to stay upright much longer.

He wondered if there was something on her nails, because his body wasn't reacting to being scratched the way he thought it should. It was some of the most intense pain he'd ever felt, which made him think poison, maybe mixed with some sort of fast-working sedative or muscle relaxant, because his hands and feet were already starting to go numb.

Sam slid down the wall slowly, keeping his back pressed against it as he did. He could feel the blood oozing from the wounds, making the edges of his shredded shirt sticky, and his vision started to get fuzzy around the edges. He looked up to see Sekhmet standing in the middle of the room, only inches from Dean, glaring down at both of them with bright yellow eyes narrowed in hatred.

"Where's Ede?" he asked.

"Ede is safe," the goddess answered. "She's sleeping upstairs."

"Are you going to kill her, too?"

"Of course not," Sekhmet answered. "She's a good girl, and I will protect her from all of this. She will sleep the night through in peace, and when she wakes in the morning, I will make certain that she doesn't remember you at all."

Sam blinked and tried to focus on what was going on, but he was finding it harder to concentrate. He looked across at Dean, who was laying motionless, sprawled out on the floor where Sam had dropped him. Sekhmet stepped toward Sam slowly.

"You shouldn't have told her your real name, Sam," she growled. "Because I knew who you were as soon as she told me what it was. Your name is in that book Dean carries around, too, you know."

Sam took as deep a breath as he could manage and tried to push the pain to the back of his mind. "But no matter. I'll just rid the world of two worthless men instead of one."

Sam thought he saw Dean starting to stir behind her, but he wasn't sure if it was real or if it was just his blurry vision playing tricks on his mind. It wasn't until Dean managed to get his hands under him and started pushing himself up from the floor that Sam fully trusted what he was seeing. He turned back to Sekhmet slowly.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "Kill half of the human race one person at a time? Gonna take a while, isn't it?"

"I am immortal," she said. Her voice almost dripped with loathing and derision. "I can take as long as I wish. I considered finding another way, a faster way, but this one is so much more fun." She'd continued moving toward him and away from Dean the entire time, and she was standing directly over him.

Sam risked a glance back at Dean and saw him pulling himself slowly across the floor, dragging his useless legs behind him, trying to get to the crossbow that Sam had dropped. He turned his attention back to Sekhmet, who had reached behind her back and pulled out a large pair of shiny metal scissors.

"Your hair is too long," she announced. "But it is no matter. I can fix that."

She knelt down besides him, grabbed a handful of his hair, and jerked his head back against the wall. She was lifting the scissors toward his head slowly when a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye pulled his attention back to his Dean.

Dean lifted the crossbow up, rolled onto his back, and fired it all in one motion.

Above Sam, Sekhmet jerked as the bolt rammed into her lower left side, but that was all.

Dean hadn't lit the arrow before he fired it, and he hadn't hit her in the heart. It wasn't Dean's fault, because there was no way he could have known exactly what the crossbow was supposed to be used for, but Sam had only brought three shots with him, and now one of them was gone. And Dean hadn't killed Sekhmet, hadn't even really injured her.

All he'd done was piss her off.

Sekhmet spun on her knees and hissed at Dean, who was still lying on his back on the floor. She dropped the scissors, moved away from Sam, and started crawling across the room on all fours, changing as she went. Dean tossed the crossbow away and pushed himself backwards, dragging himself across the room as fast he could, leading her away from Sam.

Sam took one last glance at the goddess as she changed in front of him, saw the muscles in her body transforming from human to animal, saw the hands become paws and the nails become claws, and he threw himself the other direction, toward where Dean had thrown the crossbow.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Sam had wrapped his hand around the crossbow and was reaching into his pocket for another bolt when Sekhmet's transformation completed. Instead of a pissed off woman with a pair of scissors, she was a full grown black lioness, and she was stalking directly toward his injured brother. Dean was pushing himself away frantically, his chest heaving from the exertion, dragging legs that refused to work.

Sekhmet brought one massive paw down across the top of Dean's thigh. Sam was lighting the bolt when he heard his brother's shout of pain, and his head snapped up. He didn't have the best angle for a heart shot where he was, but he had no choice but to fire. The bolt slammed into her right behind her left shoulder and sank deep into her chest. She reared her head back and let out a vicious-sounding growl, but she didn't stop moving forward.

Dean had nowhere else to go; his back was literally against the wall. And there was a murderous lion standing above him.

Sam pulled the last bolt out of his pocket and loaded the crossbow again.

Sekhmet pounced.

Dean had his hands up in front of him to protect his face, and he grabbed the fur on both sides of her head, trying to hold her back. He was so worried about the teeth that hovered only inches above his throat that he'd forgotten about the ferocious claws. He remembered them immediately the first time she raked them down his chest, opening gashes from his shoulder to his hip. Before he could even scream, she'd done it again.

Sam pushed himself to wobbly feet and forced himself to move across the room, flicking the lighter under the lighter fluid-soaked gauze as he moved. He only had one shot left; he had to kill her with it. If he missed, he and Dean were both dead. He had to get a better angle.

Dean let go of Sekhmet's head, wrapped his arms around his bleeding chest and stomach, and rolled onto his side. He didn't even think about how open he'd left himself to attack until he felt the teeth sinking deeply into his shoulder.

Dean screamed.

Sam fired.

Sekhmet fell.

She collapsed on top of Dean, pinning him to the ground. The flame on the end of the crossbow bolt spread from its original position quickly. Sam watched in confused fascination as the flames licked and danced across the black fur. In only seconds, most of Sekhmet's body was in flames.

Dean was trapped beneath her, and he wasn't moving.

Sam ran forward faster than he'd known he could still move, grabbed Dean's arms, and pulled frantically. He ignored the way his hands slid on arms slick with his brother's blood, ignored the way Dean's head flopped around bonelessly, ignored everything and concentrated on nothing more than getting Dean out from under the fire that was consuming Sekhmet's body before it took him, too.

Sam managed to pull him free and clear of the flames just in time, but he didn't stop. He dragged Dean to the opposite side of the room, to the smear of blood that he himself had left behind moments earlier, and only then did he let himself slow down. He pressed his back against the wall and slid down it again, emotion and exhaustion leaving him gasping for breath, and pulled Dean's head and shoulders into his lap.

"S'okay," he mumbled. "Gotcha, Dean. S'okay. Gonna be okay."

He needed to get up. He needed to get them out of there. He needed to get Dean to a hospital, get the bite and claw wounds treated, get him a transfusion to replace the blood he'd lost and was still losing... but he couldn't. As the adrenaline that had been surging through his veins deserted him, he realized that he wasn't even going to be able to get himself out of the room, let alone his unconscious and badly injured brother.

With hands that were rapidly losing feeling, Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. There was only one person he could call, only one person who might be close enough to help them. He could only hope that whatever spell Sekhmet had used on her had only put her to sleep and not rendered her unconscious.

He pressed the button to dial and held the phone to his mouth, tried to blink back the encroaching darkness, and was rewarded with the sound of a woman's sleepy voice saying, "Hello?"

"Sam," he gasped out. "Basement... help..."

The last word had barely passed his lips when his eyes fell closed, his head fell forward, and his shoulders slid sideways down the wall.


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Sam spent twenty-four hours in the hospital bed next to Dean's. He spent the first eight of those unconscious. He spent the next two days sitting in the chair between those beds.

He'd listened to every word the doctors had said when they'd told him about the Egyptian cobra venom in both his and Dean's blood, about how it was concentrated around the deep gashes the lion's claws had left in their skin. He'd listened to the real wildlife agents, who had been called to collect what was left of the lion's body, when they talked about how rare a black lion was and how there had never been one seen anywhere in the United States. He'd listened to the police, the ones who kept stopping by to hear him tell his version of the story again, when they told him that Dean's bloodwork showed traces of both blue lotus nectar and GHB and wondered if it was possible that someone had drugged him intentionally, weakened him, and then sent the lion to finish him off.

The doctors had asked if he knew how lucky they were to have survived. The wildlife agents wanted to know if he'd seen anyone else at the house that night, someone who might have been the lion's handler. The police questioned him about any enemies his brother might have made in the few short hours they'd been in Memphis: had Dean said anything about someone being jealous that he was going home with Miranda?

He'd listened to them all, answered what few questions he could, and didn't even have to fake confusion over what had actually happened. There were huge chunks of the evening missing from his memory, and he seriously doubted that he'd ever get them back. The doctors told him that was a side effect of the cobra venom, and he let them believe that was all it was.

He'd also listened to Ede, when she told him how sorry she was that he and his brother had been hurt trying to protect her and Miranda, when she told him she didn't remember anything that had happened after she'd gotten out of the car in the front yard but she was sure he'd done everything he could, and when she couldn't stop talking about how brave he was and how wonderful it was that he'd managed to get three of them out of that house alive. And he'd held her while she cried out her pain and loss after the police told her that there was no sign of Miranda's body, that the lion had likely dragged her off to a cave somewhere, and that chances were that they'd never find her remains.

The one thing he remembered most vividly, the one thing he would never be able to forget, was the sight of Dean's pale skin contrasted against the dark red blood that had covered the majority of it. He saw it every time he closed his eyes – the deep gashes that Sekhmet's claws had left in his brother's chest, leg and back and the deep wounds left by the massive teeth that had been sunk into both the front and back of this right shoulder, the same gashes and wounds that had taken two hours of surgery and almost three hundred stitches to sew closed. And he'd awakened more than once in the middle of the night, with his heart pounding in his chest and the weight of Dean's blood-soaked body in his arms so real he could still feel it, because it lived in his nightmares, too.

Three days had passed since that night in Miranda's basement. Three days of doctors and wildlife agents and police and distraught young women. Three days of concern and worry and fear. Three days of heart monitors and oxygen masks and IV antibiotics.

It had been three days, and Dean hadn't opened his eyes.

Sam was looking out the window, watching the sunrise with his head pressed against the glass, when he heard the first out-of-sync beat from Dean's heart monitor. The second one had him turning his head. By the time the third one sounded, he was already back at Dean's side, squeezing his arm.

"Come on, Dean," he encourage softly. "You can do this. Just open your eyes and let me see that you're still in there."

It started with slowly fluttering eyelids. Then it moved to his fingers, which fisted in the blankets, and the muscles in his arms, which twitched and jumped under Sam's hand. He moved his hand down, wrapped his fingers around Dean's, and grasped them lightly.

"It's all right," he said. "It's over. You're gonna be okay."

By that point, Dean's breathing had quickened, the puffs of condensation his exhales left against the inside of the mask over his face growing larger as the seconds between them shortened. Sam put his other hand on Dean' chest, directly over his heart, and leaned down.

"Calm down," he ordered gently. "You've got a lot of stitches. Believe me when I say that you don't want to pull them out."

A few more seconds passed, seconds filled with Dean's attempts to pull himself back to waking and Sam's quiet reassurances that he could do it, before Sam finally got what he'd been wanting and needing for the past three days.

"Sammy."

His voice was weak, and broken, and so soft that Sam barely heard it, but it was real. The green eyes were hazy, clouded and confused, but they were open. There was pain etched in the face, and worry, but there was understanding, too. It was Dean.

It was over, and it was going to be okay.

Sam let out a breath that he felt like he'd been holding for the better part of a week, and smiled.

"You ever argue with me again about splitting up being a bad idea, and I'm going to shoot you."

Sam thought he saw the hint of a smile at the corners of Dean's mouth, and he felt the muscles in Dean's arm tense up again. He imagined that there were a thousand questions swirling in Dean's mind, things he wanted to ask and needed to say, but the pain and exhaustion that he saw in his brother's eyes were more important. Sam squeezed Dean's hand once more.

"I gotcha, Dean," he whispered. "It's okay."

Dean gave Sam another tired smile and a slight nod of his head, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.


End file.
